


To Be Consoled

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [28]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Graphic Description, John is a BAMF, John needs support just like everyone else, Original Character Death(s), bomb blast aftermath, john is a doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 10:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ordinary day is torn to shreds by a bomb blast, and John's friends are reminded that he's not just Sherlock's blogger and assistant: he's a soldier and a doctor and a leader in his own right. But he's human, too, like anyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Consoled

**Author's Note:**

> This story was prompted by Shaindy who wrote the following:
> 
> I have a thing for Doctor John (seriously, who doesn't? :p). They all know he's a doctor, but I'd love for the people in this 'verse to see John as he used to be - a doctor in the army calmly taking charge and directing things at the scene of a mass accident or something like that. In my head it's a bombing of some sort, to give the parallels to Afghanistan. I see Tad and Molly assisting since they're doctors as well but totally deferring to John because of his experience. (They would have a whole new level of respect too since they've never been near anything like that before.) And because I'm such a sucker for H/C I'd love to see them taking care of John afterwards when the emotions set in.
> 
> Shaindy kindly betaed this story too, but all errors are my own.

Days of horror always start like any other day. With domesticity or domestic violence; with loved ones or loneliness; with hope or hopelessness. Days of horror always start with life going on as life does.

Then something rips the fabric of the everyday to shreds. An earthquake. A fire. A gunman striking. A bomb falling. A car crashing. One person’s life, or two, or dozens, or hundreds, sundered like so much tissue paper. Torn and tattered. For some, there’ll be loss, permanent and profound; for others, miracles of survival that mark some turn in the trajectory of their life.

Some people are never touched by days like these.

Some people have more than their share.

This day of horror began with a Collared rehearsal at Greg and Molly’s house, and then a post-rehearsal pint at the pub a few streets away, because Molly liked the Victorian-macabre décor and Sherlock, in any case, was curious about a framed letter, purported to be by Samuel Pepys, that hung in the smallest snug. Sherlock determined it was probably authentic, which pleased the proprietor, who stood them all a round of drinks and promised them a gig the first Saturday of next month. Molly drank lemonade, because she was almost sure she might be pregnant. (She hadn’t told Greg yet. The home test this morning had come up positive, but she thought she might do a second test tonight, just to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake. If that was positive too she’d tell Greg.) Sherlock gave her a Look, and she gave _him_ a Look, and for a wonder he didn’t go spilling the news before time.

Sherlock and Tad bickered, which was par for the course.  John and Greg, for some unknown reason, began pitching peanuts at one another and then at Tad, who turned out to be quite good at catching them in his mouth. When Sherlock tried to make a rude comment about trained seals, everyone threw peanuts at him, and he caught them and threw them right back, until John copped one in the eye and collapsed in his seat as though shot. He clutched his eye for good measure and muttered brokenly that his time here on Earth was done, and _if you ever loved me, would one of you make sure Archimedes gets fed_ , and to tell the Sarge he’d died with his boots on. Then he snickered because he could see Sherlock rolling his eyes at him.

The afternoon was still light, fading slowly into evening, when they left and headed back towards the house to collect instruments and vehicles. They were laughing. Sherlock was insisting that he’d take care of any fish feeding, thank you very much. It was all like any other day.

The thunderous crack of the bomb exploding in the next street shattered windows for two streets around.

Greg and John knew immediately what it was, of course. John from years of deployment on battlefields; Greg from the bad days of the IRA bombings, from the 2005 terrorist attacks, from Baskerville, God, yes, he knew that sound.

The brick dust and smoke were blooming over the rooftops and at the end of the street. The car alarms were shrieking. Greg had grabbed Molly, pulled her down, thrown himself over her.

John had thrown himself at Sherlock, dragged him down, curling himself over the taller body, over his head and chest, yelling “Down!” at Tad, who instinctively obeyed that voice of command. Sherlock struggled to rise. John shoved his head down again as he himself peered up, around, looking for the danger points, wishing he had his gun.

“Clear!” he shouted, and he sat back, eyes still scouring the street for threats. Sherlock unfolded from underneath him and took off like a skyrocket. John followed him up, and the two of them ran towards the end of the street, towards the melee, towards the first signs of people staggering away, in their direction, towards safety. Tad was up and on their heels in a moment. Molly, white and shaking, insisted she was fine, _fine_ , shoved at Greg to _go_ as he hesitated, torn between staying at her side and doing his job. She resolved the problem for him by rising and stumbling and then running after the others.

They turned the corner into carnage. Car parts, bricks, roof tiles, bodies, blood. Sherlock was picking his way into the centre of it all. John was shouting after him.

“Sherlock, no, there could be a second device…”

“No,” Sherlock called back, “Wrong MO.” Sherlock’s phone was out, fingers flying over the keys, “Mycroft’s team is on the way. I’ll keep an eye out,” he added, shutting down John’s next protest.

John turned to Tad, issued orders in a crisp, clear voice and Tad responded immediately, running to the nearest house, knocking on the door and holding up his badge. The householder, waxen, trembling, nodded.

“Right,” John spotted Molly and Greg, “First aid station in that house, anyone who can walk, names and details if you can, off you go.”

“Ambulances and police are on the way,” said Greg, pocketing his phone, “I think you’re more familiar with the routine for this situation than I am, John: so what next?”

John stood still, quartering the street with a hard, calculating gaze. “We need to check the houses and shops, get anyone who’s fine out of the area. Send them to the pub.”

“On it,” Greg said. He began at the next house, badge out, looking for injuries and assistance. A young man in the third house led his gran out, ended up leading a straggling line of shocked but unharmed survivors out of the street, around to the pub that Collared had just vacated.

Sherlock returned. “All clear,” he said.

John didn’t ask how he knew. He was busy triaging the first person he found. Too late for them. He moved on. Someone stirring and groaning under a twisted car door and bricks. Sherlock helped him shift the door, stood back while John assessed. “Scarf,” John ordered. Sherlock stripped his off and handed it over, watched while John chocked a torn-off fence paling beside the woman’s leg, tied it straight but gently with the scarf.  “Hang on,” John told the woman, “Help’s coming.”

John moved on. Sherlock began to follow, but John told him to stay with her, to keep her warm. He gave Sherlock his jacket, and Sherlock draped it over the woman with ill grace.

“She’s scared and going into shock and she needs you,” John told him, “I don’t right now. When the ambulance gets here, come find me then.”

Sherlock sat with the woman. She whimpered and, because he thought it was what John would do, Sherlock held her hand. She crushed his fingers in hers but seemed to calm down. Sherlock thought maybe he ought not tell her everything he had deduced so far about the bomb blast. Instead, he asked if she knew anything about goldfish. She didn’t. Then he told her everything he knew about goldfish. It was quite a lot. She didn’t seem to mind. When he told her about Archimedes, she seemed even to smile. _John will be pleased_ , thought Sherlock, and told her about their pet in excruciating detail. Whenever he stopped, she squeezed his hand. _Go on._ So he did.

Molly and Tad appeared at John’s side, reporting that the woman from the house, Mrs Pilar, a schoolteacher, was clearing the sitting room for the walking wounded.

John, calm and commanding, searched the street methodically, directing Molly and Tad as needed on where to look, what to do. Some able-bodied civilians appeared. John gave them tasks too: fetching blankets and water, first aid kits if they could find them. Telling them to direct the mobile injured to the first aid centre, asking them to sit with those who couldn’t walk. Giving everyone something to do, making them all feel calm, capable, useful.

John kept everyone’s shock at bay with his assuredness. Here was someone who wasn’t afraid, who knew what to do, who made them feel safe.

They could hear sirens: police, fire, ambulance. The injured were triaged, given what first aid they could provide. Those who could walk were sent on their own to Mrs Pilar’s house at the end of the street. On John’s instructions, Tad helped an elderly man, then an hysterical teenaged girl, then a little boy clutching his puppy, to the first aid station and returned each time.  When the woman with the broken arm was found in a miraculously spared space behind the TV Licencing van, Tad was left to fix a simple splint for her. Tad did that then helped the woman to the first aid station.

From there, Tad looked out of the shattered window, past the shredded curtains. He could see his DI making his search from house to house; could see John and Molly searching, stopping, moving on.  More people came staggering out of the wreckage to the house.

After a time Molly stopped and, after she and John had worked on someone below Tad’s field of vision for a while, John rose and walked on.

Ambulances and emergency services arrived. Tad could see Molly talking to paramedics while the man she’d been tending was loaded onto a gurney. He saw Greg emerge onto the street and cross to talk to the senior policeman on the scene. He saw Sherlock, relieved of his responsibilities to the injured woman, clamber onto a pile of rubble and scour the street for a sign of his friend.

Molly got back to the house, her hands and shirt covered in blood. She cleaned herself up and Mrs Pilar gave her a vibrantly coloured sari to wear. Wound in the bright yellow dress, Molly set about assisting Tad with more first aid while the paramedics dealt with the more serious cases inside and in the street. They were both of them more used to dealing with the dead, but they were still medical professionals. When first aid was no longer urgent, they began making tea, that English panacea, for those who didn’t need the hospital.

“I forget sometimes that John’s a doctor, you know?” began Tad, pouring tea and milk, spooning out sugar.

“I know what you mean,” said Molly, passing delicate china cups to Mrs Pilar’s shaking hands. Molly smiled at Mrs Pilar and the older woman smiled back, hands growing steadier, and she took the tea out to her impromptu guests

“And he used to be a soldier,” continued Tad, “I mean, god, this can’t be the first time he’s dealt with this sort of thing.”

“He was so calm,” agreed Molly, “I just wanted to sit down and cry but he was fantastic.”

Tad nodded, as though he totally understood about the wanting to sit down and cry. “Did you see how he spoke to that little boy with the dog? Bedside manner of a champion, especially under the circumstances. Calmed him right down.” Tad gave her a lopsided grin. “The dog too.”

Molly gave Tad a wobbly smile. “You should have seen him with the man I stayed with. His leg was open to the bone. John knew just what to do. He wrapped it up tight and got me to stay there, with my thumb on the artery to stop the bleeding.” She shuddered a little. “I think we saved his life.”

Sherlock bowled in, looking a little wild. “Molly, did John say where he was going?”

She frowned. “He said he could see someone on the other end of the street. That’s the last I saw him.”

Sherlock whirled and ran outside.

**

 John had confidence that Molly would be all right with the man they’d found. It was no fun to be wrist deep in a wound pressing an artery closed with your thumb, but he knew she could do it. Molly wasn’t squeamish, and he’d left her with a bright light of determination in her eyes.

“Ambulances are on the way, Molly,” he told her, “It won’t be long. If your hand gets tired, press down with your other one first before you let go. If he regains consciousness, stay calm and talk to him, let him know help’s on the way. All right? I can’t stay. I can see someone at the end of the street, and she’s in trouble.”

Molly nodded.

“Molly,” his voice was oddly deep, oddly resonant, full of control and reassurance. “You are going to be fine, and he is going to be fine because you’re looking after him. All right?”

“All right,” she said, her own voice much stronger and calmer than she felt, and strangely it made her feel strong and calm. “We’ll be all right, John. Go and find your patient.”

John moved on, past the body of a delivery man. Past the body of a woman. Past a severed arm. Past a splash of blood on a fence.

The woman he’d seen was pinned under a car engine and a telephone pole, which had been severed from the power lines by the blast. There was no current, but there was no way he could move either of the things crushing her legs, abdomen and pelvis.

She blinked up at him.

“It isn’t good, is it?” she asked, her voice shaking only slightly.

“Just hold on,” he told her, “Help’s on the way.”

“Help’s here,” she said with a trembling smile. John’s mouth pulled into a reassuring doctorly expression. It curled his mouth but did not touch his eyes.

“I’m a doctor. Just be still.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said softly, “I can’t feel very much except my hands.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should probably find someone else who needs you.”

“They’ve all got help,” he said.

“Will you stay with me, then?” Tears gathered in her eyes.

“Of course.”

He pushed debris out of the way so he could sit by her. She looked awkward, her upper body at a twisted angle, and so, making her promise to tell him if it hurt at all, John managed to make a space behind her head. With his legs on either side of her body, her head was pillowed on his thigh and stomach. He could feel her blood seeping into his jeans and shirt, warm and sticky on his skin. He reached down to take her hand.

“I’m John,” he said.

“Jasmine,” she said. She gasped a little then settled. She smiled again, her brown eyes crinkling, her dark skin sheened in perspiration, “Thank you, for being with me.”

He squeezed her hand.

“I think,” she said, “Would you mind if…? Would you say a prayer with me?”

John swallowed, and tried to keep the frown off his face. “I don’t really know any prayers.”

“I’ll say it, then. You listen.”

He squeezed her hand, and held it tight. “The Lord is my Shepherd,” she began, “I shall not want…” But her breath gave out and she panted a little before recovering. “Oh.”

“I remember a hymn,” John offered after a moment, “My mother liked it.”

“That would be… lovely… if… if you…”

He shushed her gently and closed his eyes. His mouth was dry and full of brick dust. His throat was thick. He cleared his throat and began to sing softly. It was not his best singing. His audience didn’t mind, though.

_Lord make me an instrument of your peace._

_Where there is hatred, let me sow love._

_Where there is injury, pardon,_

_Where there is doubt, faith,_

_Where there is despair, hope_

_Where there is darkness, light_

_Where there is sadness, joy._

Jasmine stopped breathing at ‘hope’. John waited until ‘joy’ to fall silent.

Sherlock found him a little before the paramedics reached that far, shown the way at the end by a neighbour who stood by his ruined gate. “He’s been singing to her,” the neighbour said, voice hushed, distant. Tremulous. “He stopped a little while ago, but he hasn’t moved. I don’t… I didn’t… what should I do?”

Sherlock made no reply, only picked his way through the rubble to John’s side.

“John?”

John had a dead woman’s head in his lap, her limp hand in his. John’s other hand was gently resting on her forehead, above her sightless eyes. She was smiling.  That made Sherlock feel… he didn’t know, really. She had died with John, and she had died at peace, and that sort of thing was not normally of interest to Sherlock. He had a fleeting thought of _when I go, that is what I want. To go in peace, with John there_. Sherlock did not articulate that thought. He wouldn’t have, even without the strange expression on John’s face.

John looked up, dry-eyed and grim. “Emergency services here, then?”

“Yes.”

“Is Molly all right?”

“They’ve taken her patient away. She’s at the first aid station. Greg’s with her.”

John nodded and, moving with the utmost care, laid Jasmine’s head on the street. He rose. His clothes were stiff with blood.

“Come along, John,” said Sherlock, very softly.

John seemed to shake himself, then straightened his back and shoulders to military stance and marched ahead of Sherlock back to their starting point.

He marched into Mrs Pilar’s house. People stepped away from him, remembering him from such a short while ago, but the man they’d seen then was not this grim, blood-soaked, brittle soldier.

Sherlock directed John to the bathroom. “Strip,” he said, and John stripped, mechanically.  Blood smeared over his scarred chest, down his legs.

Tad appeared at the doorway, holding out a T-shirt, a pair of too-large trousers. “Mrs Pilar found these…”

John blinked at him, at the clothes, stretched out a hand but Sherlock’s fingers pressed on his wrist, stilling him. “Wash first, John, clean clothes after.”

John sighed wearily, as though it was all so obvious but really too much bother.

“I… I just wanted to let you know,” said Tad, not knowing quite what to make of this, “You were amazing out there. Just. You were incredible. God knows what we would have…”

And John’s face changed, transformed, into rage and disgust, a scowl so rigid and forbidding that Tad actually took a step backwards.

“Look outside, Tad. Does it _look_ like there’s a god?”

Just as quickly, the moment fled, but John was left breathing heavily. Standing in the bathroom in his underwear and a stranger’s blood, fists clenched, teeth clenched, breath heaving in his lungs. Then he caught sight of himself in the mirror, at blood and scars and haunted eyes, and in one movement he picked up the little wooden footstool beside the sink – set there so tiny Mrs Pilar could reach the top shelf of her cabinet – and smashed it into the mirror so he didn’t have to look at the war painted on his body any more.

The sound brought Molly and Greg running.

“Keep everyone else away from here,” said Sherlock to the others, pulling John away from the detritus sparkling in the hand basin and over the tiles at their feet. “Go.”

John shook his head, bringing his hands up to press the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Sorry. Sorry. This isn’t Kandahar. I know that. Give me a minute.”

John heard footsteps leaving, then gave in to the hands on his arms, on his back, guiding him to sit down on the edge of a bath. He heard running water and felt cloth sliding over his skin. Arms. Hands. Back. Chest. Legs. The water was warm but he shivered. He opened his eyes to see Sherlock’s white shirt bundled up in Sherlock’s hand, swiping over and over his skin, coming away pink.

“There are towels in here, you know,” he said matter-of-factly.

Sherlock threw the ruined shirt into the tub and grabbed a flannel, began the scrub again. “Yes, but you need to dry off on something, and I’m not giving you my trousers for that.”

John managed to puff a laugh out at that. He sat still and let Sherlock finish sluicing him clean. When a large towel was wrapped around his shoulders, he stood. He wrapped the second towel around his waist and then stripped off his underwear. He grabbed the flannel from Sherlock and finished cleaning the smears of blood from his skin. He threw the cloth in after the shirt, finished drying, and reached for the clothes Tad had brought.

Someone handed them to him, and he looked up properly to see Tad passing him the bundle.

“Sorry,” said Tad, “I didn’t mean…”

“Not your fault,” said John a tinge of regret taking the edge off the curtness. He turned aside, tugged the trousers on then discarded both towels and pulled the overlarge T-shirt over his torso.

When he turned back, Molly and Greg had returned, expressions revealing their concern for him. Molly pressed a mug of tea into his hands. “Tea always makes things better,” she said, brightly, but then her face fell, because she knew it was a stupid thing to say.

John managed a smile for her. “It does,” he agreed, taking a sip. It did. Tea was normal. No time for tea in firefights and attacks and retreats and when the wounded were freshly in. Tea was for after the battles, when things were under control. Tea meant the stand-down from emergency to simply hell-as-usual. He took another sip. Life as usual. “Thanks, Molly.”

John wondered if he should feel embarrassed or uncomfortable, but the notion slid away from him, barely considered. These people were his friends, the people who he trusted with his life and from time to time his sanity.

He felt Sherlock’s hand at the small of his back, a slight flexing of fingers against his spine before Sherlock took his hand away. Tea and Sherlock. Anchors in the maelstrom.

News of the man who had sung to Jasmine Cubbenah as she died had already spread among the survivors, the police, the paramedics, the story told by Jasmine’s neighbour to anyone who would listen.  The storytellers didn’t know what had happened to the man who had sung to her, until the word reached Mrs Pilar’s house, and there they all knew. Everyone John had already helped knew.

Greg caught and held John’s eye.

“Her family will be glad you were there, John,” said Greg, “You did so much good today, for lots of people, and that woman’s family will be glad she wasn’t alone.”

John swallowed, hard. Sherlock’s hand returned to rest lightly on his back. He understood that John’s reaction to Jasmine was not just about Jasmine, or Afghanistan, or the horror of bombs at home. John wrapped his hands more firmly around the mug of tea, letting the heat seep into his joints.

“Someone was with my mother when she died,” he said after a moment, “I never did find out who. I was too young to know how to start looking, and Dad was too... he couldn’t. But they told us someone was with her and held her hand and…” John’s chin lifted and he breathed deeply. “To this day, I thank that stranger every day for doing that for her.” He tilted a rueful grimace at his friends, “There’s no God. There’s just us. Devils and angels in human form. Most of us both at the same time.”

He handed the tea mug to Molly. “I’ll be out in a minute. A fresh cup would be fantastic.”

“I’ll find a broom and a dustpan,” said Tad.

Greg, Molly and Tad withdrew, closing the door behind them.

John scrubbed his hands over his face again and turned to face Sherlock who was scrutinising him closely.

“Devils and angels in human form? A bit redundant, isn’t it? Angels have swords as well as wings, John.”

John grimaced. “If you remember, I said they were terrifying, too.”

“You are, sometimes. Not to me, of course.”

“Of course not.”  John grinned.  He had not missed the fact that Sherlock had just basically called him one of the angels. John knew perfectly well he was not an angel by any stretch. Still, knowing that Sherlock was absolutely not the sentimental type, and that Sherlock knew exactly what kind of angels John occasionally referenced in his songs, he decided he didn’t mind that image.

Sherlock looked intensely at John and thought of the other things he could say. That he was proud of John, that he had been impressed by John’s skill and cool demeanour on that war zone that had no place in their London. That John was brilliant, a leader and a healer, and that he was so, so rare. But Sherlock knew that John already knew that this was what Sherlock thought of him.

Instead, Sherlock patted John’s back and then stuffed his hands in his own pockets. “Mycroft is asking for my report. I should probably go and make it.”

“You know who’s behind this?”

“I have two theories and a dozen solid clues. I need to liaise with Mycroft’s department for more data so I can get to the back of it.”

“Go and liaise away,” John said, “I’m fine.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

“PTSD episode done and dusted, Sherlock. Really. I’m fine. And the others are here if I fall into a decline.”

“You won’t fall into a decline.”

“I know. So go. I’ll get home, get changed and catch up if you need me.”

With a curt nod, Sherlock swept out of the bathroom, out of the house and into a waiting dark car.

John stood in the corridor, watching him leave. Tad swept up to him, carrying a broom, and patted him on the shoulder without saying another word. John nodded a reply, but they didn’t speak. It was a comforting, solidarity kind of silence.

While Tad set to cleaning up the shattered glass, Molly returned with a small first aid kit, not yet depleted.

“You have a little glass,” she waved at his cheek, “A few scratches. Let me just fix them up for you.”

John stood still and let her fuss. When she’d done, she put the kit on a nearby shelf and then, with only the slightest hesitation, wrapped him in the hug he wasn’t sure he could have taken from any of the others.

“You were amazing,” Molly whispered to him, “I’m so proud to know you, John. I know what happened with that woman was awful, but we also saved someone’s life today. I work with the dead, most days, and if it wasn’t for you, that’s where I would probably have seen him, on my slab. Instead, he’s going to go home to his family. Because you showed me how to save his life.”

John hugged her fiercely back, kissed her cheek, tasting the salt of a tear. “Thank you, Molly.”

She laughed, a little teary laugh, and gave him another enthusiastic hug. She pressed her mouth close to his ear and whispered: “I think I might be pregnant. I haven’t told Greg yet. Shh. Don’t tell.”

John pulled back to give her a genuine smile, that wide smile full of boyish charm. “My lips are sealed.”

Molly’s cheeks dimpled cheerfully in return.

Tad re-emerged from the bathroom with shards of mirror in a dustpan and a bin bag of soggy, bloody clothes.

“I should go apologise to the owner about her mirror,” said John.

“Greg’s already said there was an accident,” Tad said, “Told her we’d clean it all up and come back tomorrow to replace it.”

“I…”

“You’ve already done your bit,” Tad told him, “We’ve got this. You just go sit down and have a cup of tea while I go get the van to drive you home. Get you out of that outfit. It’s hurting my bloody eyes, that is.”

John looked down at the canary yellow T-shirt. He honestly hadn’t noticed till now how garish it was, or how it clashed with the dark purple cargo pants Mrs Pilar had dug up for him from her son’s room.

John considered arguing, then let that thought slide away too. The days of having to cope with everything on his own were over. For a man with trust issues, he had surely come a long way.

“Fine. Come on, Molly. Lead me to the tea.”

And he would, John determined, write a letter to Jasmine’s family, to let them know she didn’t suffer, that she wasn’t alone when she died, and that a prayer – the only prayer that John almost believed in – consoled her to the last.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the Prayer of St Francis – as sung by Sarah McLachlan, specifically the line: “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console."
> 
> The story also references the Collared song, Illuminated: http://archiveofourown.org/works/426609


End file.
